Forensic Science: Crime on File #21: Ted Bundy (Killings between 1974 and 1978)
Ted Bundy is one of the most terrifying of all serial killers. Why? It is not simply because he was a sadist and necrophile who confessed to the murders of more than 30 women, and may conceivably have murdered as many as 100. It is also because, unlike most suck monsters, he could actually pass for a regular guy - the good-looking young lawyer who lives down the street. Bundy was not a skid-row slasher who operated a safe distance from respectable folk. He was a killer who spent time in ordinary places: the university campus, the mall, the park over the holiday weekend.
Apparent Normality Perhaps the most deadly aspect of Bundy's modus operandi was that he played ruthlessly on his apparent normality. Typically, a victim - always a young woman with long dark hair with a center part - would be walking back to her student dorm, or out in the park She would be approached by a personable, tousle-haired young man with his arm in a cast. He would explain that he needed help lifting something into his car. The nice young woman would offer to help the nice young man and she would follow him to his car. She would then disappear forever, or would be found in the woods, her body raped, her head staved in by a furious assault with a blunt instrument.
Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell in November 1946 in Vermont. However, he enjoyed little of the privilege typically credited to his generation. His mother, Louise Cowell, had become pregnant by a serviceman who had disappeared before Ted was born. She and her baby lived with her struct parents in Philadelphia, and in an effort to avoid scandal the family pretended that Ted was actually his grandparents' child, and that his mother was in fact his sister. When Ted was 4 his mother moved to Tacoma, Washington, and married a man called John Bundy; a year later, in 1951, Ted took his stepfather's name.
Bundy was a bright child who consistently achieved good grades in school. However, he was not an easy mixer. He was bullied when he was young and later, while becoming more apparently gregarious, he also acquired a reputation for petty theft and lying.
After high school he attended the University of Puget Sound in Washington. Around this time he met a young, pretty woman called Stephanie Brooks, who had long dark hair worn with a center part. Stephanie was from a moneyed California family and she and Bundy went out together for a time. However, while Bundy became obsessed with her, she found him lacking in ambition and, when she left college, she broke off with him. Bundy was devastated.
Murderous Rage
He left college and moped for a while. Then he turned his disappointment into motivation to succeed. He re-enrolled in college, studied psychology and became active in the Republican Party. He worked for a suicide hotline, and received a commendations from the Seattle Police Department for catching a mugger. He found a new girlfriend, divorcee Meg Anders. He could scarcely have looked more like a model citizen.
Underneath, however, a murderous rage was building. First, he got back in touch with Stephanie Brooks, meeting up with her in California while on a business trip in 1973. She was impressed by the new g-ahead Ted, and - unbeknown to Anders - Stephanie and Ted began to talk of marriage.
In February 1974, Bundy broke off all contact with Brooks. Just as suddenly as she had dumped him, he did the same to her. What she did not know was that, just beforehand, Bundy had committed his first murder. The victim was a young woman called Lynda Healy who he has abducted from her basement apartment in Seattle. Over the next few months, 5 more young women would vanish in the surrounding area. Each one was last seen out walking, and each one had long dark hair with a center part.
It was clear that there was a serial killer on the loose, but at this stage the police had no bodies and no clues. Then came the events of July 14. On that hot simmer's day crowds had flocked to the shores of Lake Sammammish, but two of them - 23-year-old Janice Ott and 19-year-old Denise Naslund - had failed to make the journey back. Both had wandered off from their friends and vanished. When police investigated, several passers-by reported seeing Ott in conversation with a man whose arm was in a sling and was heard to say his name was Ted. Then another witness came forward and said that this Ted had asked her to help secure a sailboat to his car, a tan Volkswagen Beetle. She had gone with him as far as his car but, when he told her the boat was somewhere up the road and they would have to drive there, she had become suspicious and declined.
The police put out a description of the man called Ted and various calls came in. One of these was an anonymous call from Meg Anders, saying that she thought the man wight be her boyfriend Ted Bundy, who was starting to alarm her with his interest in violent sex and bondage. The police checked out Bundy, but the young Republican law student seemed too innocuous to worry about, and the lead was dropped.
Over the next 3 months, bodies started to be discovered. Ott and Naslund were found buried in the woods, along with the skeleton of a third woman who could not be identified. Two more bodies were found the following month. Then Bundy moved his operations out of the state.
His next 3 victims were all abducted in Utah during the month of October. At this point, Bundy made his first mistake. On November 8, he attempted to abduct Carol DaRonch from a shopping mall in Salt Lake City. He pretended to be a police officer and lured her into his car, a VW Beetle, but she became suspicious and managed to escape, following a struggle, Later that night, 17-year-old Debbie Kent was not so lucky; Bundy abducted and murdered her.
Arrested
In the New Year, Bundy moved his hunting ground again, this time to Colorado. He abducted four more women there in the first half of 1975. Just before the fourth body was discovered, however, he was finally arrested. A policeman had stopped Bundy in Salt Lake City and looked inside his car, finding handcuffs and a stocking mask. Carol DaRonch was called in and picked Bundy out of a line-up as the man who had tried to abduct her. Her evidence was enough to have him convicted and sentenced to jail for attempted kidnapping.
Meanwhile, other evidence linked Bundy to the killings in Colorado, and in January 1977 he was taken to Aspen to be tried for the murder of Caryn Campbell. The game was clearly up for Bundy. However respectable his exterior, it was all too plain that underneath was an appalling sexual sadist and murderer.
This should have been the end of the story, but, waiting for trial, Bundy demonstrated new levels of resourcefulness. He escaped from custody during a court appearance and spent 8 days hiding out in Aspen before being recaptured. Incredibly, he then managed to escape again, cutting a hole in the roof of his cell, crawling along and cutting another hole into a janitor's room, then walking unchallenged out of prison. This escape would last longer and have far worse consequences.
At Large
Bundy fled to Tallahassee, Florida, where he rented a room under an assumed name, close to the university. Two weeks after his escape, on January 15, 1978, he murdered again, giving up all subtlety in his approach. He broke into a sorority house and brutally raped and murdered two young women, leaving a third badly injured.
The following month, he failed in his attempt to abduct a schoolgirl. Three days later, he succeeded in abducting and murdering his final victim, 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. After another three days, he was finally recaptured and this time he was convicted of first-degree murder: the evidence against him was the match of hi teeth with the bite marks left on his victims. In July 1979 he was sentenced to death by electric chair.
Law student Ted Bundy launched several increasingly tenuous appeals and became a celebrity. While in prison, he confessed to more than thirty murders. Women proposed marriage to him; one even succeeded in exchanging marriage vows with him when she appeared as a defense witness during an appeal court appearance. The courts were not impressed however, and finally, on January 24, 1989, Ted Bundy was put to death.
One of Bundy’s famous quotes – “We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow."
Ted Bundy is one of the most terrifying of all serial killers. Why? It is not simply because he was a sadist and necrophile who confessed to the murders of more than 30 women, and may conceivably have murdered as many as 100. It is also because, unlike most suck monsters, he could actually pass for a regular guy - the good-looking young lawyer who lives down the street. Bundy was not a skid-row slasher who operated a safe distance from respectable folk. He was a killer who spent time in ordinary places: the university campus, the mall, the park over the holiday weekend.
Apparent Normality
Perhaps the most deadly aspect of Bundy's modus operandi was that he played ruthlessly on his apparent normality. Typically, a victim - always a young woman with long dark hair with a center part - would be walking back to her student dorm, or out in the park She would be approached by a personable, tousle-haired young man with his arm in a cast. He would explain that he needed help lifting something into his car. The nice young woman would offer to help the nice young man and she would follow him to his car. She would then disappear forever, or would be found in the woods, her body raped, her head staved in by a furious assault with a blunt instrument.
Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell in November 1946 in Vermont. However, he enjoyed little of the privilege typically credited to his generation. His mother, Louise Cowell, had become pregnant by a serviceman who had disappeared before Ted was born. She and her baby lived with her struct parents in Philadelphia, and in an effort to avoid scandal the family pretended that Ted was actually his grandparents' child, and that his mother was in fact his sister. When Ted was 4 his mother moved to Tacoma, Washington, and married a man called John Bundy; a year later, in 1951, Ted took his stepfather's name.
Bundy was a bright child who consistently achieved good grades in school. However, he was not an easy mixer. He was bullied when he was young and later, while becoming more apparently gregarious, he also acquired a reputation for petty theft and lying.
After high school he attended the University of Puget Sound in Washington. Around this time he met a young, pretty woman called Stephanie Brooks, who had long dark hair worn with a center part. Stephanie was from a moneyed California family and she and Bundy went out together for a time. However, while Bundy became obsessed with her, she found him lacking in ambition and, when she left college, she broke off with him. Bundy was devastated.
Murderous Rage
He left college and moped for a while. Then he turned his disappointment into motivation to succeed. He re-enrolled in college, studied psychology and became active in the Republican Party. He worked for a suicide hotline, and received a commendations from the Seattle Police Department for catching a mugger. He found a new girlfriend, divorcee Meg Anders. He could scarcely have looked more like a model citizen.
Underneath, however, a murderous rage was building. First, he got back in touch with Stephanie Brooks, meeting up with her in California while on a business trip in 1973. She was impressed by the new g-ahead Ted, and - unbeknown to Anders - Stephanie and Ted began to talk of marriage.
In February 1974, Bundy broke off all contact with Brooks. Just as suddenly as she had dumped him, he did the same to her. What she did not know was that, just beforehand, Bundy had committed his first murder. The victim was a young woman called Lynda Healy who he has abducted from her basement apartment in Seattle. Over the next few months, 5 more young women would vanish in the surrounding area. Each one was last seen out walking, and each one had long dark hair with a center part.
It was clear that there was a serial killer on the loose, but at this stage the police had no bodies and no clues. Then came the events of July 14. On that hot simmer's day crowds had flocked to the shores of Lake Sammammish, but two of them - 23-year-old Janice Ott and 19-year-old Denise Naslund - had failed to make the journey back. Both had wandered off from their friends and vanished. When police investigated, several passers-by reported seeing Ott in conversation with a man whose arm was in a sling and was heard to say his name was Ted. Then another witness came forward and said that this Ted had asked her to help secure a sailboat to his car, a tan Volkswagen Beetle. She had gone with him as far as his car but, when he told her the boat was somewhere up the road and they would have to drive there, she had become suspicious and declined.
The police put out a description of the man called Ted and various calls came in. One of these was an anonymous call from Meg Anders, saying that she thought the man wight be her boyfriend Ted Bundy, who was starting to alarm her with his interest in violent sex and bondage. The police checked out Bundy, but the young Republican law student seemed too innocuous to worry about, and the lead was dropped.
Over the next 3 months, bodies started to be discovered. Ott and Naslund were found buried in the woods, along with the skeleton of a third woman who could not be identified. Two more bodies were found the following month. Then Bundy moved his operations out of the state.
His next 3 victims were all abducted in Utah during the month of October. At this point, Bundy made his first mistake. On November 8, he attempted to abduct Carol DaRonch from a shopping mall in Salt Lake City. He pretended to be a police officer and lured her into his car, a VW Beetle, but she became suspicious and managed to escape, following a struggle, Later that night, 17-year-old Debbie Kent was not so lucky; Bundy abducted and murdered her.
Arrested
In the New Year, Bundy moved his hunting ground again, this time to Colorado. He abducted four more women there in the first half of 1975. Just before the fourth body was discovered, however, he was finally arrested. A policeman had stopped Bundy in Salt Lake City and looked inside his car, finding handcuffs and a stocking mask. Carol DaRonch was called in and picked Bundy out of a line-up as the man who had tried to abduct her. Her evidence was enough to have him convicted and sentenced to jail for attempted kidnapping.
Meanwhile, other evidence linked Bundy to the killings in Colorado, and in January 1977 he was taken to Aspen to be tried for the murder of Caryn Campbell. The game was clearly up for Bundy. However respectable his exterior, it was all too plain that underneath was an appalling sexual sadist and murderer.
This should have been the end of the story, but, waiting for trial, Bundy demonstrated new levels of resourcefulness. He escaped from custody during a court appearance and spent 8 days hiding out in Aspen before being recaptured. Incredibly, he then managed to escape again, cutting a hole in the roof of his cell, crawling along and cutting another hole into a janitor's room, then walking unchallenged out of prison. This escape would last longer and have far worse consequences.
At Large
Bundy fled to Tallahassee, Florida, where he rented a room under an assumed name, close to the university. Two weeks after his escape, on January 15, 1978, he murdered again, giving up all subtlety in his approach. He broke into a sorority house and brutally raped and murdered two young women, leaving a third badly injured.
The following month, he failed in his attempt to abduct a schoolgirl. Three days later, he succeeded in abducting and murdering his final victim, 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. After another three days, he was finally recaptured and this time he was convicted of first-degree murder: the evidence against him was the match of hi teeth with the bite marks left on his victims. In July 1979 he was sentenced to death by electric chair.
Law student Ted Bundy launched several increasingly tenuous appeals and became a celebrity. While in prison, he confessed to more than thirty murders. Women proposed marriage to him; one even succeeded in exchanging marriage vows with him when she appeared as a defense witness during an appeal court appearance. The courts were not impressed however, and finally, on January 24, 1989, Ted Bundy was put to death.
One of Bundy’s famous quotes – “We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow."